Wild Cards Part 21

"You don't want to do that," murmured David Harstein. Tach's hand froze. "The knight would be better." The Takisian nodded, and quickly moved the chess piece. His jaw dropped as he contemplated the move.

"You cheat! Why, you miserable cheat!"

Harstein spread his hands in a helpless, placating gesture. "It was just a suggestion." The young man's tone was soft and aggrieved, but his dark brown eyes were alight with amus.e.m.e.nt.

Tachyon grunted, and wriggled back until he could lean against the sofa. "I find it rather alarming that a person of your position would stoop to using your gifts in such a despicable manner. You should be setting an example for the other aces."

David grinned, and reached for his drink. "That's the public face. Surely with my creator I can fall back into my lazy, bohemian ways."

"Don't."

There was a moment of strained silence while Tach stared inward at pictures he would rather forget, and David with elaborate concentration gave the pocket pegboard chess set an infinitesimal s.h.i.+ft to the left.

"I'm sorry."

"It's all right." He gave the younger man a soothing smile. "Let's go on with the game."

David nodded, and bent his wiry dark head over the board. Tach took a sip of his Irish coffee, and allowed the warmth to fill his mouth before swallowing. He was ashamed of his overreaction to the teasing remark. After all, the boy had meant no harm.

He had met David in the hospital in early 1947. On the Wild Card Day, Harstein had been playing chess at a sidewalk cafe. No symptoms had manifested themselves then, but months later he had been brought writhing and convulsing into the hospital. Tach had feared that this intense, handsome man would be yet another faceless victim, but against all expectations he had recovered. They had tested: David's body exuded powerful pheromones, pheromones that made him hard to resist on any level. He was recruited by Archibald Holmes, dubbed the Envoy by a fascinated press, and proceeded to use his awesome charisma to settle strikes, negotiate treaties, and mediate with world leaders.

Of the other male Aces he was Tachyon's favorite, and under David's tutelage he had learned to play chess. It was a testimonial both to his own growing abilities and to David's teaching skills that he had resorted to his powers in an effort to keep the game from Tach. The alien smiled, and decided to repay the other man for his interference.

He carefully sent out a probe, slipped beneath David's defenses, and watched as that fine mind weighed and evaluated possible moves. The decision was reached, but before Harstein could act upon it Tach gave a sharp twist, erasing the decision, and subst.i.tuting another in its place.

"Check."

David stared down at the board, then flipped it onto the floor with a howl while Tach climbed onto the couch, buried his head in a pillow, and laughed.

"Talk about me me cheating. I can't control my power, but cheating. I can't control my power, but you! you! Reach into a man's head and . . ." Reach into a man's head and . . ."

A key sc.r.a.ped in the lock, and Blythe called out, "Children, children, what are you battling about now?"

"He cheats," the two men called in chorus, pointing at one another.

Tach gathered her into his arms. "You're freezing. Let me fix you some tea. How was the conference?"

"Not bad." She removed her fur hat, and shook snow from the silver-tipped ends. "With Werner down with the croup they were grateful to have my input." She leaned forward, and pressed a soft kiss on David's darkly shadowed cheek. "h.e.l.lo, dear, how was Russia?"

"Bleak." He began collecting the scattered chessmen. "You know, it doesn't seem fair."

"What?" Tossing her coat onto the sofa, she pulled off her muddy boots, and curled up against the pillows with her feet tucked snugly beneath the silver fox fur.

"Earl gets to s.n.a.t.c.h Bormann out of Italy and save Gandhi from a Hindu fanatic, and you get to sit in a sleazy motel and attend a rocketry conference."

"They also serve who only sit and talk. As you should well know. Besides, you've gotten your fair share of the glory. What about Argentina?"

"That was more than a year ago, and all I did was talk to the Peronists while Earl and Jack intimidated the jackboots in the street. Now, who do you think the press noticed? Us? Not likely. You've got to have flash flash to get noticed in this business." to get noticed in this business."

"And just what is this business?" interjected Tachyon, pressing a mug of steaming tea into Blythe's hands.

David hunched forward, his head thrusting out from his stooped shoulders like an inquisitive bird. "Salvaging something out of the disaster. Using these gifts to improve the human condition."

"That's how it starts, but will it end there? My experience with super-races-being a member of one myself-is that we take what we want, and the devil take anyone else. When a tiny minority of people on Takis began to develop mental powers, they quickly began interbreeding to make certain no one else would get a chance at the powers. It gave us a planet to rule, and we're only eight percent of the population."

"We'll be different." Harstein's wry laugh made a mockery of the statement.

"I hope so. But I'm more comforted by the knowledge that there are only a few dozen of you aces, and that Archibald hasn't welded all of you into this great force for Democracy." His thin lips twisted a bit on the final words.

Blythe reached out, and pushed his bangs off his forehead. "You disapprove?"

"I worry."

"Why?"

"I think you and David should be grateful that you're out of the public eye. The rage of the have-nots against the haves is never pretty, and your race has a tradition of suspicion and hostility toward the stranger. You aces are surpa.s.sing strange. What is it one of your holy books says? Suffer not the witch?"

"But we're just people," Blythe objected.

"No, you're not . . . not anymore, and the others won't forget it. I know of thirty-seven of you, there may be more, and you're undetectable-not like the jokers. National hysteria is a particularly virulent and fast-growing weed. People are seeing Communists everywhere, and it probably wouldn't take much to transfer that distrust to some other terrifying minority-like an unseen, secret, awesomely powered group of people."

"I think you're overreacting."

"Am I? Take these HUAC hearings." He gestured toward a pile of newspapers. "And two days ago a federal jury indicted Alger Hiss for perjury. These are not the actions of a sane and stable nation. And this during your month of joy and rebirth."

"No, that's Easter. This is the first birth." David's weak joke sank into the heavy silence that washed through the room, broken only by the hiss of wind driven snow against the windows.

Harstein sighed and stretched. "What a gloomy bunch we are. What say we get some dinner, and find a concert? Satchmo is playing uptown."

Tach shook his head. "I have to go back to the hospital."

"Now?" wailed Blythe.

"My darling, I must."

"Then I'll go with you."

"No, that's silly. Let David take you to dinner."

"No." Her lips had tightened into a mulish line. "If you won't let me help, I can at least keep you company."

He sighed and rolled his eyes as she pulled on her boots.

"Stubborn lady," David remarked from beneath the coffee table, where he was scrabbling after the scattered chess pieces. "We've all discovered that it does no good to argue with her."

"You should try living living with her." with her."

The delicate pillbox hat warped beneath the sudden tightening of her fingers. "Believe me, we can solve that problem."

"Don't start," Tach said warningly.

"And don't take that disapproving-father tone with me! I'm not a child, nor one of your secluded Takisian ladies."

"If you were, you'd behave better; and as for being a child, you're certainly acting like one-and a spoiled one at that. We've had this discussion before, and I'm not not going to do what you want." going to do what you want."

"We have not not had a discussion. You have constantly closed me off, changed the subject, refused to discuss the matter-" had a discussion. You have constantly closed me off, changed the subject, refused to discuss the matter-"

"I'm due at the hospital." He started for the door.

"You see?" she shot at the uncomfortable Harstein. "Has he cut me off, or has he cut me off?"

The young man shrugged, and crammed the chess set into the pocket of his shapeless corduroy jacket. For once, he seemed at a loss for words.

"David, kindly take my genamiri genamiri to dinner, and try to return her to me in a somewhat better frame of mind." to dinner, and try to return her to me in a somewhat better frame of mind."

Blythe cast Harstein a pleading look, while Tachyon stared with regal disdain at the far wall.

"Hey, folks. I think you ought to take a nice romantic walk in the snow, talk things over, have a late supper, make love and quit bickering. Whatever it is, it can't be that big of a problem."

"You're right," murmured Blythe, the rigidity pa.s.sing from her body under the relaxing wash of pheromones.

David placed a hand in Tach's back, and urged him out the door. Lifting Blythe's hand, he placed it firmly in Tachyon's, and made a vague gesture of benediction over their heads. "Now go, my children, and sin no more." He followed them down the stairs and into the streets, then bolted for the subway before the pacifying effects of his power could wear off.

"Now do you see why I don't want you working with me?"

The moon had managed to slip beneath the skirt of the clouds, and the pale silver light streaming across the snow made the city look almost clean. They stood on the edge of Central Park, breath mingling in soft white puffs as she stared seriously up into his face.

"I see that you're trying to protect and shelter me, but I don't think it's necessary. And after watching you tonight . . ." She hesitated, searching for a way to soften her next words. "I think I can deal with it better than you can. You care for your patients, Tach, but their deformities and insanities . . . well, they disgust you too."

He flinched. "Blythe, I'm so ashamed. Do you think they know, can they sense?"

"No, no, love." Her hand stroked his hair, soothing him as she would one of her young children. "I see it only because I'm so close to you. They see only the compa.s.sion."

"The Ideal knows I've tried to suppress it, but I've never seen such horrors." He jerked away from her comforting arms, and paced the sidewalk. "We don't tolerate deformity. Among the great houses such creatures are destroyed." There was a faint noise, and he turned back to face her. One gloved hand was pressed to her mouth, and her eyes were wide, glittering pits in the glow from a nearby streetlight. "And now you know I'm a monster."

"I think your culture is monstrous. Every child is precious no matter what its disabilities."

"So my sister thought, and our monstrous culture destroyed her too."

"Tell me."

He began drawing random patterns on a snow-covered park bench. "She was the eldest, some thirty years my senior, but we were very close. She was married outside the house during one of those rare family truces. Her first child was defective and put down, and Jadlan never recovered. She killed herself several months later." His hand swept across the bench, obliterating the drawings. Blythe lifted his hand, and chafed the chilled fingers between her gloved hands. "It started me thinking about the whole structure of my society. Then came the decision to field-test the virus on earth, and that was the end. I couldn't sit by any longer."

"Your sister must have been special, different, like you."

"My cousin says it's the Sennari line that we carry. It's a throwback recessive that-according to him, anyway-should never have been permitted to continue. But I'm losing you with all this talk of pedigree, and your teeth are rattling in your head. Let's get home and get you warm."

"No, not until we settle this." He didn't pretend not to understand. "I can help you, and I insist that you let me share this with you. Give me your mind."

"No, that would be eight personalities. It's too many."

"Let me be the judge of that. I'm managing just fine with seven."

He made a rude noise, and she stiffened with outrage. "Like you managed in February when I found Teller and Oppenheimer battling over the hydrogen bomb, while you stood like a zombie in the center of the room?"

"This will be different. You're beloved to me, your mind will not harm me. And beyond the work . . . when I have your memories and knowledge you won't be lonely anymore."

"I haven't been lonely, not since you came."

"Liar. I've seen the way you gaze off into the distance, and the sad music you pull out of that violin when you think I'm not listening. Let me be there to provide you with a small part of home." She placed a hand across his mouth. "Don't argue."

So he didn't, and he allowed himself to be convinced. More out of love for her than any real acceptance of her arguments. And late that night, as her legs tightened about his waist, and her nails raked down his sweat-slick back, and he came in violent release, she reached out, and sucked in his mind as well.

There was a terrible, gut-wrenching moment of violation, theft, violation, theft, loss loss, then it was over, and from the mirror of her mind came back two images. The beloved, lady-soft, gentle touch that was Blythe, and a frighteningly familiar and equally beloved image that was him him.

"d.a.m.n them all!" Tachyon raged the length of the small antechamber, spun, and fixed Prescott Quinn with an outthrust forefinger. "It is outrageous, unconscionable, to summon us in this manner. How dare they-and by what right do they-pull us from our home, and send us haring off to Was.h.i.+ngton on two hours'-two hours'-notice?"

Quinn sucked noisily on the stem of his pipe. "By the right of law and custom. They're members of Congress, and this committee is empowered to call and examine witnesses." He was a burly old man with an impressive gut that stretched his watch chain, complete with Phi Beta Kappa key, across the severe black of his waistcoat.

"Then call us in to witness-though G.o.d knows to what-and have an end to this. We came tumbling down here last night only to be told the hearing had been postponed, and now they keep us cooling our heels for three three hours." hours."

Quinn grunted, and rubbed at his bushy white eyebrows. "If you think this is much of a wait, young man, you've a lot to learn about the federal government."

"Tach, sit down, have some coffee," murmured Blythe, looking pale but composed in a black knit dress, veiled hat, and gloves.

David Harstein came mooching into the antechamber, and the two Marine guards at the chamber door stiffened and eyed him warily. "Thank G.o.d, a touch of sanity in the midst of madness and nightmares."

"Oh, David, darling." Blythe's hands clutched feverishly at his shoulders. "Are you all right? Was it terrible yesterday?"

"No, it was great . . . all except being continually referred to as the 'Jewish gentleman from New York' by that n.a.z.i Rankin. They questioned me about China: I told them we had done everything possible to negotiate a settlement between Mao and Chiang. They of course concurred. I then suggested that they disband these hearings, and they agreed amid much joy and applause, and-"

"And then you left the room," interrupted Tach.

"Yes." His dark head drooped and he contemplated his clasped hands. "They're constructing a gla.s.s booth now, and I'll be recalled. d.a.m.n them anyway!"

A supercilious page entered and called for Mrs. Blythe van Renssaeler. She started, her purse falling to the floor. Tach recovered it, and pressed his cheek against hers.

"Peace, beloved. You're more than a match for them alone, much less with all the rest of you along. And don't forget, I'm I'm with you." She smiled faintly. Quinn took her arm, and escorted her into the hearing room. Tachyon had a brief glimpse of backs, cameras, and a jumble of tables all washed in a fierce white light from the television spots. Then the door closed with a dull thud. with you." She smiled faintly. Quinn took her arm, and escorted her into the hearing room. Tachyon had a brief glimpse of backs, cameras, and a jumble of tables all washed in a fierce white light from the television spots. Then the door closed with a dull thud.

"Game?" asked David.